


When Sirius Knew he Loved Remus

by simplysirius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, One Shot, Pining, Relationship(s), Remus x Sirius, sirius x remus, wolfstar, wolfstar angst, wolfstar fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:41:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28636428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplysirius/pseuds/simplysirius
Summary: Sirius often lies awake at night wondering when he fell in love with Remus. Maybe he’s not sure. Maybe it was just written in the stars that he would find someone to help him see all the colors of the rainbow. Based on Colors by Halsey.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 74





	When Sirius Knew he Loved Remus

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for daily fics and fanart! I also take requests :)

“What are you thinking about?” Remus asked, poking Sirius cheek as they lay on a blanket in the astronomy tower, letting the gentle spring breeze ruffle their hair.

“You,” Sirius said, smiling at the way Remus’ cheeks dusted the lightest shade of pink.

“What about me?”

Sirius reached over and let his fingers sink into Remus’ curls, brushing them away from his face so he could get a better look at how the sun caressed his cheeks and kissed his skin. Remus leaned into his touch, letting his eyes flutter close. “Just about how much I love you.”

Sirius always thought the world was black and white. There was good and bad, light and dark, hero and villain; perhaps some gray space in the middle, where he belonged, not quite bad, but maybe not completely good, either.

And then he met Remus, and suddenly his world was bursting with the brightest colors, so blinding and hypnotic sometimes he had to squint until his eyes adjusted. It was quite possible to define Sirius’ life in two halves: before he met Remus, and after.

Before, when all he knew were gray walls in a dusty house, locked away in his room or left wandering the dingy London streets. Before, when all he had was a last name that wrote his fate for him, that brought him one step closer to being someone he never wanted to be.

After, when suddenly the world was teeming with golden halos and viridescent sweaters, the royal reds and golds painting the Gryffindor common room like a brilliant kaleidoscope. After, when his last name no longer mattered and he fell asleep every night lost in honeyed eyes bathed in the palest moonlight.

Sirius wasn’t sure exactly when he fell in love with Remus.

Maybe it was the moment he stepped onto the Hogwarts Express that first year and made his way down the aisle, looking for a compartment, only too aware of the students putting their bags on the seats to prevent him from sitting. Remus didn’t. Remus looked through the window, nervously smiled, and pushed his bag onto the floor.

Maybe it was that time in third year when he figured out where Remus was really disappearing to every month, and instead of being angry or scared, all he wanted to do was hug the hell of out Remus and curl up next to him by the fire with a cup of tea. Because he didn’t care. Human or werewolf or anything in between, Sirius didn’t care what Remus was.

Maybe – almost definitely – it was right before the start of fifth year, when Sirius had taken up a permanent residence at the Potters, as nice as it was to sit with James and talk things through, the only person he really wanted was Remus. Not even to talk. Just to sit next to, listening to his steady breathing, smell the gentle waves of tea and honey lingering on his skin. The Potters had a house, but Remus felt like home.

There was, of course, the small, simple issue of telling his best friend that he was madly in love with him, without making things awkward or weird, without even knowing if there was a chance that Remus felt the same way. That was the terrifying part; the part that electrified Sirius’ body and paralyzed his bones, some days keeping him in bed from dawn till dusk, some days making his heart ache so badly that even the sound of Remus rustling around in the room made him pull the covers over his head and cocoon himself in darkness.

It was just three simple words. They weren’t new, either; James and Remus and Sirius were well accustomed to wrapping each other in tight embraces before and after every moon, in the wake of pulling off another fantastic prank, whenever they scored a new dig on Snape. God, I love you guys and, don’t worry Remus, we got you, we love you were not new to their vocabulary. But now, every time Sirius tried to say it, his chest grew heavy and his mouth ran dry.

“What’s the matter with you?” Remus had asked in the middle of a Quidditch game, shaking Sirius’ shoulder. James had just scored a goal, and Gryffindor was on the cusp of winning, but all Sirius could think about was how beautiful Remus looked wrapped in his scarf, cheering wildly with the rest of the crowd.

“Just cold,” Sirius had insisted, trying to muster his best smile. Every smile that he didn’t give to Remus felt like a waste. And then Remus was stripping his scarf, and before Sirius could protest, he was enveloped by the warm fabric around his neck.

“Better?” He remembered Remus shouting, and no matter how many times Remus shivered during that game, he left that scarf around Sirius until the end.

There was just no way he could risk that. This. What they had together. Sirius could live the rest of his life without kissing Remus, if he really had to, but he could absolutely not sacrifice living with him. Life without Remus wasn’t the same – all dull colors and muted sounds – and Sirius refused to risk it all.

Maybe Remus didn’t like him that way. Maybe it would scare him away, make him hide from Sirius and avoid him forever. Maybe all those times Sirius had caught Remus looking at him weren’t what he thought they were. Maybe those sleepless nights filled with terrible dreams, the nights where Remus slipped into bed beside Sirius to comfort him, didn’t mean what Sirius wanted them to mean.

He made it through fifth year without consequence, pretending everything was just fine and that his heart wasn’t bleeding dark crimson on a blank canvas. Sixth year was harder, especially once Lily and James really started to hang out, leaving Sirius and Remus alone together for hours on end. It was maddening, sitting in the same room, miles apart, not able to touch him or hold him or love him like he wanted.

Until it finally became too much.

It was like squeezing a tube of paint with the lid screwed on, pressing and pressing so hard that, finally, the cap blasted off and gobs of paint spewed out.

One minute, they were laying in their own beds, Remus spending his Sunday morning lazily reading in the warm sunlight, Sirius staring at the ceiling like he so often did, James already somewhere off in the castle with Lily, and in the next second, Sirius was bounding over to Remus, sliding next to him.

“I need to tell you something,” Sirius declared, stealing the book out of Remus’ hands and tossing it aside.

Remus frowned at his book thrown on the floor. “You murdered my book.”

“I like somebody.”

It was the last thing Remus had ever expected fall from Sirius’ lips. His shoulders straightened out and he sat up, gulping. “Okay. Do they like you?”

Sirius shrugged, taking fistfuls of the bedsheets. “I have no idea. But I’m in love with him.”

The last word was not lost on Remus, whose heart lurched against his ribcage. He shifted uneasily on the bed. “You should…probably tell him then.”

“I am,” Sirius said bravely, watching Remus’ eyes widen as the words settled around them.

“Sirius–”

Their fingers brushed, and though the skin was burning, there was something so refreshing about it, too. “I’m in love with you. And not, like, how James loves you. Like the real thing. I just want you to know that…because it’s been killing me.”

Sirius slipped away from the bed, trying to fill his lungs with oxygen and keep his heart pumping blood to his brain, but Remus’ hand circled around his wrist and stopped him.

“You can’t walk away from me after you just said something like that.”

“What else should I say?”

Remus hesitated. “You should ask if I love you, too.”

There was a small flutter of hope in Sirius’ chest from the way Remus chewed his lip, one of his nervous habits. “Do you?”

He nodded slightly, then found his voice, as soft and strained as it may have been. “Yes. I do. I love you.” There was a quiet moment where no one could blink or breathe. “If I asked you to kiss me right now, would you?”

“Yes,” Sirius whispered, falling back on the bed. Remus caught him with steady arms and held his breath as their lips met.

Sirius was covered in colors; the blues were deeper, the grays less dark, the reds and purples and oranges smeared together to create a portrait of the sun rising on the horizon of a new world. A world where Sirius’ lips were rosy and his cheeks flushed from kissing Remus. Where blue was the color of the sweater Remus wore on their first date. Where the sky was seeping lilac above them the morning after they made love under the stars.

It felt like, maybe, Sirius had always known that he loved Remus. That his home was not grey walls and creaking floors. His home was honeyed eyes and golden curls.

What a wonderful home.


End file.
